Liam Fox: no 'systems in place to control MoD costs'

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has outlined plans to tackle the financial
mismanagement that has blown a huge hole in the Ministry of Defence's
budget.

12:13PM GMT 22 Feb 2011

In a damning report MPs have condemned the department's continued inability to control expenditure that has seen £8 billion “written off…simply for reasons of delay” to equipment projects.

Despite last October’s defence review, the department has failed to “spell out” that it has spending under control, the parliamentary spening watchdog found.

The situation has become so dire that it has been suggested that the Treasury might lend the cash to get the MoD through the year.

Nine Nimrod aircraft, that cost £3.6 billion, are in the process of being destroyed despite military chiefs warning it would create a “massive security gap” in a letter to The Daily Telegraph last month.

Similarly the MoD will scrap its new Sentinel surveillance planes that provide long range radar coverage for troops on the ground in Afghanistan but will go in 2015.